You may terminate your attorney at anytime. Whether or not you get a refund is a different question. If the attorney can justify his or her fee based upon the time he or she has spent on the case you may not get any money back.

Yes, the challenge is to get your money back. Ask for an itemized statement showing the time involvement for which he can probably charge you. The difference should be refunded and if not, best option probably a grievance with local bar association.

Well first of all what bases are you using for you'r allegation here, some subjective standard on you'r part? In any event if you terminate service counsel will bill the hours already worked against your retainer to see if they owe you a refund, or you owe them for overage on hours billed. Moreover , if you have a fee agreement then you should re-read it very carefully, in many retainer agreements you will see a non-refundable clause, I use one, as do many of my colleagues so that when the retainers are not that large say $5,000.00 or less the client is aware they are not refundable.

You should contact your attorney's office and tell him/her that you would like to cease representation. The attorney would file a Motion to Withdraw with the Court. Once that motion is granted, you can seek new counsel. When you ask for the attorney to cease representation, you should also request a refund. If they need a formal request for refund, get that in asap, and have them document all work done on the case to ensure that you get a fair refund.

Acting in your best interest is likely and issue of opinion. Assuming your attorney is billing you by the hour, you need to find out if the funds he has on retainer have been spent on work completed or is he carrying surplus funds.

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